This got me thinking as usually when it comes to learning a new skill or trying a new business people fall into the trap of constantly trying to prepare themselves such as reading all the books they can on the topic. However, they actually never end up doing the activity in question for fear of failure. Then there was another example which was interesting as a person who ran a self defense school came from a very traditional background where people would practice for hours doing forms. So he carried on that mindset with his students but neglected to factor in how when he was training he had hundreds of other students to practice with in which he applied those skills.
He was then wondering why all his students who have been practicing the form for hours were not very good when it came to applying the skills to people who actually put on pressure on them as if it was a real fight. The simple answer there was they never got any real practical experience to apply those skills. Imagine all the time and money one has invested too in these situations to not actually be able to do what they hoped. It’s like paying ten thousands dollars for a piece of paper to say you graduated but still can’t actually do a particular job during pressure as an example.
That’s why for myself if I ever invest a lot into learning a new skill, I always think on whether or not I am being trained with real life situations to actually help enforce those lessons. For example, even if It was something as simple as learning to use a camera I would make sure that during my time of training there has to be a good amount of time spent on actually using the camera. Especially if you are paying thousands of dollars for these lessons.